Merton’s on to a winner
WOULD you like to win a motorhome? Well, that’s a shame because you can’t. I’m so sorry. If it’s any consolation, what you might be able to do, if you tune in tonight to
MOTORHOMING WITH MERTON AND WEBSTER
(C5, 8pm), is win seven nights’ hire of one (I’m assuming this includes the days as well, but you might want to check), plus spending money etc.
Yes, this is yet another of those Channel 5 celebrity travelogues which breaks off in the middle of each episode to announce a reasonably exciting if not exactly life-changing giveaway (not that that’s usually how they phrase it).
In this case, just ping them a £2 text, or trudge to the post box and send your details to that mysterious address in Derby, and, who knows, you could soon be enjoying your very own motorhoming adventure, although the odds are you won’t be, at least not via this means.
Of course, to encourage us to go to that much trouble and/or expense, the rest of the programme has to make the prospect of winning such an experience look fairly pleasant, at least compared to being poked in the eye with a pencil. In this respect our hosts – comedian Paul Merton and his wife, fellow comic Suki Webster – do not let us down.
In tonight’s episode, the first of six, they’re pootling around Kent. Hence a stop-off for oysters (bleaaaaagh) at Whitstable, for example, and a ride on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (I must say that looks fun), plus a spot of fruitless fishing on the beach at Lydd-on-Sea. But more significantly, they’re getting to grips with the very idea of driving one of these things, not to mention cooking and sleeping in it. Neither of them have motorhomed before. That’s half the point.
Perhaps surprisingly, given what they both do for a living, they don’t go out of their way here to be side-splittingly funny. Don’t get me wrong: there’s plenty of levity, just not an abundance of belly laughs. If it feels like a let-down to begin with, you soon come to realise this is exactly as it should be.
What we’re watching for the most part is Paul and Suki as a comfortably middle-aged, endearingly clueless husband and wife, taking turns at the wheel of an unfamiliar and unwieldy vehicle (“You’re quite close to that fence…”), rather than a pair of professional performers trying to out-quip one another.And thank the Lord for that.
Having watched Motorhoming With Merton And Webster’s opening episode, I must admit winning a week with one of these things actually does sound quite appealing after all.
Or maybe even both of them, if they’ve nothing else booked in their diaries.